REPORTAGE, PART 3

17^th September
Dan got jollified on a way in the raspberry pink car, and on a stop the passengers of the pink car wanted him displaced to us. Even though the situation looked hopeless, it had an affect of welcome relief, a social rendezvous of the highest relevancy. Rules, which have been valid for centuries, that were already recognized by sages in antic Rome had not lost their universal validity and don't evade anyone, us, you, not even wise men. The bread was solved by collective dinner, next on program were games. I felt like on an international contest. The spectators are pressed to their seats; the ring was embellished and lighted--the spot lights seek the competitors. The crowd is divided into several camps. More active characters join the competition--Dan have said that he would show the ogoshi grip. Petr designed Pavel as a target. Pavel didn't like it, he was continuously pushing Dan away. Petr prompts Dan verbally. Pavel recedes, but Dan is still following him. Pavel maintains strict neutrality, he weakens the opponent verbally. Dan is trying to resist, but he slowly gives in. Petr counters Pavel effort, and tries to encourage Dan. Pavel bypasses the middleman, and attacks directly, verbally. Now also Petr starts a direct attack, and Dan is left unnoticed on the periphery. The spectators jump, the match grades up, Pavel is showing a suggestion of the ogoshi move on Petr, and Petr is defending himself out loud, betting on his role as a spectator, but Pavel, which has crossed the bounds of a spectator, pulls Petr to action. He shows the ogoshi directly on Petr, and leaves the arena victoriously. Petr comments his wounds. The spectators are waking up from the trans, and filled with pleasing feeling of good spent time they begin to discuss the match. Offended Petr isn't listening; he licks his wounds, and watches Pavel. The spectators analyze the key moments of the battle and drag the participants between themselves. The actors cool down after a while, and the pleasing feeling of belonging to the collective starts to emerge in their souls. This is the best time to divide for a while, jump into the cars, and continue to the distant destination, lost in the fog on the horizon, to the small city of Tromsø.

We briefly look around the small city of Tromsø, there is a modern church that resembles the famous Sydney's Opera. We tent on a little meadow and observe fabulous northern lights. We are even able to make a time evolution photo sequence. We run out of batteries quickly, and the locals in a nearby house refuse to help, so a part of us drives to a nearest gas station to charge up somewhat the most essential ones. The aurora reaches it maximum, and just before the arrival of the batteries it disappears. I make this record into my diary:

"Around eleven o'clock flamboyant aurora, at first faint, but later everywhere, drapes of light in several twisted walls moved across the sky, and filled it with incredible brightness, with beautiful visible rays dancing on surging drapes as virtuoso' fingers on a booming piano. The speed of changes is unbelievable; often, when someone called attention about changes in different part of the sky, I didn't have time to register it". "Indeed, an overwhelming show of radiant but transparent drapes, which dance with incredible variability. It seems, that each part of the light source is developing on its own, but all parts are somehow connected, as they would live of the same energy source".

It is really unbelievably euphoric experience. We design watches, and around half past two we observe another splendid show, which is our third.

18^th September
It was warm in the morning, around 8°C, and the wind finally stopped blowing. We are pleased with the passed night--the nature is on our side. There are no clouds on the sky, well at least initially. We continue around the coast, and we reach Narvik; from there we head to the Skjorndalen mountains to evade clouds. At the onset of the evening we reach, driving on a very steep private road, a damn where we stop and explore the vicinity. Then we return a little bit, and because there is no dry and flat place simultaneously around, we pitch our tents on gravel. We experience another two auroras here.

19^th September
The temperature in the night was -6.5°C. We decide to stay here for another day, and we set out for a whole day trip up to some snow capped mountain. We didn't anticipate what we were to experience. First we cross a river with no bridge, and then we continue on a path leads across swamps or bare bed-rock, with an alternative of a peat-bog. We reach the Lossivatnet lake. The group separates. A lonely reindeer watches us curiously over, and it gets near and passes us in a big circle. We decide to shorten our trip to a nearer hill. The other group reaches a snow capped summit. We return taking a different but again wet path. Some of us resign on such a comfort as dry boots and cross the river submerging the boots all the way. We dry our stuff in the cars, and some of us stay in them even over night because the sky is cloudless, and the temperature is -7°C at ten o'clock, -10°C at midnight. We guess that the minimum is around -15°C, because someone has hidden the thermometer as not to cause panic. During this night we see our last aurora.

20^th September
Again in cars we descend the mountains and take our first ferry. We are heading for the largest tidal maelstrom in the world. Its name is Saltström after a nearby town of Saltstraumen. We run across the strangest road sign that I've ever seen: food, lodging, maelstrom, parking, picnic and rest area to the right:

A part of us decides to stay for a night in a cozy fishermen's cottage, where we even get freshly caught and portioned fish for free. (the native, having known our origin, asked if we had any beer. We would given him some, but we didn't have any). Jakub skillfully transforms it into a delightful treasure for our hungry stomachs:

The rest of the expedition searched a place for tents for a long time. At first, they said, they found a place, but it was swampy. The next spot was breath-taking; however a boat tied up to a tree foreshadowed a pit fall. They quickly left the place, and found another one. At ten o'clock the temperature was 5°C.

21^st September 
We meet at the maelstrom in the morning, but we are disappointed because the waters are dead calm. So we head south, and we once again cross the polar circle (see on the left picture).

In the afternoon we reach the Svartisen national park. We plan to drive up to the glacier, but we end ten kilometers from it, at no-entry sign. Fortunately, we are able to borrow a key from a tourist cabin 400 m from the road. We prepare food (see on the right), and we enjoy the evening under roof.
22^nd September
We set for the glacier after the smoke detector goes on (but it is their fault, because they have a writing on the box for firewood saying Alfred Nobel). The road was good, but after few hundred meters it transformed into the before mentioned path for seals crossed with chamoises, so we walked on a bank of a lake fed by a river that flows from the glacier. There were impassable places even on the back, so we had to take from time to time the wet path. We were looking forward for the way around the stream flowing on the rock, but the stream quickly disappeared inside the rock.

Finally we arrived at the base of the glacier, and I myself reached it completely. It was definitely worth the effort to prolong the trip by such a short amount. Glacier isn't made up of snow nor ice. It's made up of larger snow flakes, compressed so much that they are transparent, but not connected, just intertwined. With a little bit of effort they can be separated. It only took me five minutes to "disassemble" a fist size hole into the glacier.

On the way we noticed that the water flowing out of the glacier is blue and cloudy. It is visible here. We don't know why that is so, but the water had the same shade as the crevasses when the sun shined into them, and water stayed cloudy even when taken into a flask. Our guess is that it is probably dissolved air because the bluish shade disappears by itself in time.

After some rest and lunch we set out for the nethermost university town of Oulu. Oulu is in Finland. We drive through Sweden, and after some 300 km we decide during the super not to pitch tents and to drive the whole night in the heated up cars because none wants to sleep outside. So we continue to about two o'clock in the morning, and we cross the Finnish border, this time without any incident. We stop about 100 km from Oulu, and some people sleep in the cars others in the tents.